how to pass a javascript associative array in ajax to php file

Question

How can i pass data (associative array) to php file.

 function ajax(url,data,callback)
        {
            var xmlhttp;
            if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
            {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
            xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
            }
            else
            {// code for IE6, IE5
            xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
            }
            xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
            {
                xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
                    if ( xmlhttp.readyState === 4 ) {
                        callback( xmlhttp.responseText );
                    }
                }
            }
            xmlhttp.open("POST",url,true);
            xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
            xmlhttp.send(data);
        }

Use JSON

Marc B
– Marc B

2012-05-03 18:38:54 +00:00
Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:38 — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:38
json_encode and json_decode are your friends

Anigel
– Anigel

2012-05-03 18:39:43 +00:00
Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:39 — Anigel
– Anigel, Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:39
And please use jQuery, this code looks like the stoneage...

Rob Angelier
– Rob Angelier

2012-05-03 18:41:36 +00:00
Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:41 — Rob Angelier
– Rob Angelier, Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:41
Not enough jQuery

Xeoncross
– Xeoncross

2012-05-03 18:41:37 +00:00
Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:41 — Xeoncross
– Xeoncross, Commented May 3, 2012 at 18:41
youmightnotneedjquery.com

lilHar
– lilHar

2016-02-04 21:05:32 +00:00
Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 21:05 — lilHar
– lilHar, Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 21:05

sic1 · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-03 18:55:13Z

The way i read this, you are in javascript, and you have a javascript object (javascript does not have associative arrays, just arrays and objects). So, whatever data you have, you need to turn it into a string and sent it via POST or GET to your php script. I would recommend including JSON3 as a polyfill to ensure you will have JSON.stringify on your page (for cross-browserness). Code will be something like this:

var data = {
    someData: 'data',
    moreData: [
        'blah',
        'bleh'
    ]
};

var stringData = JSON.stringify( data );

// using jquery ajax for brevity (http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/)
$.ajax({
  type: "POST",
  url: "your-php-script.php",
  data: { data: stringData }
});

Now your php script can snag that string and turn it back into json itself:

<?php
    $dataString = $_POST['data'];
    $data = json_decode($dataString);

Hopefully this is what you were looking for. Cheers!

Oldskool · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-03 18:40:48Z

0

You can use PHP's JSON functions to achieve this. It will encode/decode arrays into a notation that javascript can handle.

answered May 3, 2012 at 18:40

Oldskool

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3 Comments

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Over a year ago

No, but it's the only sane way.

romo Over a year ago

you could use serialize() and unserialize(), but you'll probably run into errors somewhere. JSON was created to do what you want.

leo0110 Over a year ago

so its like this var json = { 'info' : data};

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